


Sir Guy of Gisborne's Diary

by jadey36



Category: Robin Hood (BBC 2006)
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-08 08:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 20,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8837596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadey36/pseuds/jadey36
Summary: Sir Guy's journal, in which he confesses all. And rants a lot.





	1. Thursday, 22 Sept, 1194

**Mid morning**

I hate my life!

**Sunset, post-supper**

I hate my life even more!

I wrote a letter to Marian insisting she dine with me tomorrow evening after the Council of Knobs (I mean Nobles) meeting. It came back marked “Return to Sender – Insufficient Postage”

I wouldn’t have minded, but I hand delivered the blasted thing!

 


	2. Friday, 23 September

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I hate my life!

**Cockcrow**

Cockcrow – rhymes with cock grow. Time for some ‘me time’ methinks.  

**Mid morning**

I hate my life even more than I hated it yesterday, and yesterday I hated it a lot.

Robin of Locksley, Earl of Huntingdon is alive, returned from the Holy Land. No limbs missing, no eye patches, no broken nose, not a scratch. Well, apart from a minor stab wound to the side that some random Saracen gave him – apparently! (Clearly I need to brush up on my anatomy).

Anyway, he is back – the arrogant, cocksure, bigheaded, oh-so-righteous Robin, and has reclaimed his manor and his lands – my home!

I am fucked!

 

 


	3. Tuesday, 27 September

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teddy bears and leather-craft and other such things.

**Morning**

I have neglected my diary already. I rather suspected my duties would get in the way of making an entry every day. Displeased yet again, the sheriff made me wax and polish the castle courtyard and then smacked me one when he slipped over and knocked his stupid gold tooth out. I hate the sheriff. Not as much as I hate Robin of Locksley, but close.

I realised last night why I stabbed Locksley in the Holy Land. Yes, of course I wanted to kill him, have done ever since I stopped wetting my breeches, before then probably seeing as I was nearly thirteen before that painful episode in my life stopped. It was the hair, the mullet. When I saw him rushing out to protect King Richard and I copped a look at his hair, I completely lost my rag (and my sense of where best to stick a man with a blade in order to cause his death). The ridiculous thing is, I looked in the mirror this morning and saw that I have almost the same hairstyle. Arrgh, what is wrong with me?

I should have been quicker striking the king, of course. It was the teddy bear that made me hesitate. It looked just like my one back at Locksley, my former home, which I’ve temporarily lost, or so the sheriff reassures me. Not that I have Binky any more. The sheriff chucked him into the privy, the bald-headed, glinty-toothed bastard.

And I should have been quicker at shutting my blurty mouth. As Locksley was pointedly telling me to leave the house I’ve been living in for the past four years, I said that I’d seen him fight, and when he asked me where, I realised I’d made a boo boo and hastily said: I do not recall. *head/antique writing bureau*

As if all this isn’t enough to drive me to despair, I have to put up with the sheriff rogering me every time he feels in the mood for a bit of rumpy-pumpy.  I pleaded with him to find someone else, especially on a Tuesday night, which is my leather-craft night, but he threatened me with a rogering from my horse if I didn’t ‘see to him’ as he so delicately puts it. This does not appeal, especially as my brute of a horse has a huge willy (unlike the sheriff, tee hee!).

Well, dear diary, I must get on with my duties now, see what fun the sheriff has in store for me today. Re-grouting the castle walls if I’m not careful.

Still, on the plus side, it’s Tuesday, leather-craft night, so I have that to look forward to.

 


	4. Thursday, 29 September

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy days!

**Early**

My happiness cup runneth over! (though, to be fair, it’s not a very big cup).

Robin of Locksley decided to take the law into his own hands yesterday afternoon and saved four peasant scum from hanging, resulting in him fleeing Nottingham and the sheriff declaring him an outlaw, giving me the task of bringing him to justice.

Locksley manor is now mine again. I’m thinking of decorating to celebrate. I understand they now do a new shade of paint called A Hint of Black. Maybe Marian will like it.

To top it all, in leather-craft class I made a gorgeous quill case with matching quill holder. The leather master said my stitches were too big, but then marked my progress sheet as perfect after I stabbed him several times with a large darning needle.

I’m so happy I could burst. I don’t even mind if the sheriff rogers me tonight. I will simply bend over and think on all the above.

I hope that the next time I write in you, dear diary, it will be to describe the manner in which I hunted down and caught Locksley, resulting in my receiving a large amount of gold from the sheriff in gratification, Marian’s hand in marriage, and a replacement teddy bear, preferably in black with yellow eyes.

 


	5. Monday, 3 October

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not such happy days.

My happiness cup no longer runneth over. In fact, it is empty, has rolled off the table, hit the floor and smashed into smithereens.

Alas, I have again neglected you, dear diary of mine. And the reason is this:

My jest the other day about the sheriff making me re-grout the castle walls came to pass when I accidentally knocked over a bottle of his black nail polish. This is what I have been up to since my last entry (since the sheriff’s last entry, too, as he has had the trots for the past few days and thankfully has not come to my bedchamber of an evening).

Needless to say, I did not single-handedly grout the walls, but instead secured a number of guards – with the usual threats (disembowelling, no underwear to be worn while on duty, food rationing, etc) – to do the job for me. Only when the sheriff did his rounds did I take hold of a trowel and pretend to grout.

Seventeen guards plunged to their deaths during this exercise (admittedly, two I pushed off the battlements because they made snarky remarks about the sound my leathers made when I walked, and one because he made a rude comment about my latest creation in leather-craft class (personally, I think Marian would wear a leather bra, complete with tassels)).

Anyway, I digress. Back to my empty cup.

Robin of Locksley decided to play the hero again yesterday and handed himself in, spoiling the tongue-cutting fun that was going on in Locksley village. Worse, he snapped his bowstring in my face. I do not think he meant to strike me, but the string connected with my cheek and left a nasty weal and I found to my horror that I was completely out of foundation. As if this were not bad enough, Locksley – or Robin Hood as everyone is now calling him – escaped the dungeons, made a mockery of the castle security and is now on the loose again.

The sheriff is already miserable over his frequent visits to the garderobe, so this does not bode well for me. I just hope that I can catch Locksley soon.

For the moment, I am going to forget about the damned outlaw and concentrate on more immediate matters. Firstly, getting the grout out from under my fingernails and, secondly, visiting Marian and presenting her with the tasselled bra (hope I’ve got the cup size right; I know so little about these things).

 


	6. Monday, 10 October

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mr Paws.

**After breakfast**

The leather bra did not go down well. In fact, Marian slapped me one when I presented it to her. Naturally, I feigned indifference, told her to be at the next Council of Nobles meeting and left. I’ll admit, once clear of Knighton Hall, I did cry a bit, mostly because she slaps really hard and it hurt.

On a slightly happier note, Robin Hood put an arrow through Joderick, our latest tax collector, killing him instantly, and I am tasked with hunting Hood down. Unfortunately, de Fourtnoy, the master-at-arms, is also tasked with bringing Hood to justice. He says he’ll do it ‘politically’, while I prefer a more hands on approach, or in this case dogs on approach; the sheriff has given me a pack of hunting dogs to track Hood with. Personally, I’ll be happy if they tear him limb from limb, but the sheriff wants him alive so he can put his head on a spike. Still, I guess a bit of mauling won’t go amiss. One of the dogs has taken quite a shine to me and me to him. I have named him Mr Paws. I am going to train him to bite anyone who smells of sheriff.

**Evening**

The dogs didn’t work, much to my annoyance, but happily, de Fourtnoy became expendable after killing some innocents and blaming it on Hood, and I have the job, at the sheriff’s orders, of doing away with him. I would set Mr Paws on him, but the stupid mutt is as gentle as a pussycat and hides behind me when the sheriff barks orders at me.

I found de Fourtnoy in the stables, grooming his horse. One minute we were having a conversation, the next he had my dagger in his back and slumped to the ground, quite dead. I am now the new master-at-arms, so though Hood still remains at large, things are definitely on the up and up.

What is not on the up and up is my wooing of Marian. Clearly my gifts are not working. Perhaps I am going about this the wrong way. Might it excite her to learn that under all my leather there is yet more leather, in this case a skimpy leather thong? Perhaps I could persuade her to call round, say I have something important to tell her regarding her father or the king or something, and then ‘accidentally’ be in a state of undress when she arrives, wearing just my thong and nothing else. Yes, I think I may have hit on a good idea. I shall go to the leather-craft room at once.

 


	7. Friday, 14 October

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thong problems.

The leather thong was a complete disaster! I am thinking of joining Kirklees and becoming a nun.

It started well and then everything fell to pieces. I can hardly bear to write what befell me, but I am told that writing ones thoughts down is cathartic, so with trembling hand I am going to commit this terrible affair to parchment.

Two days ago, I asked a guard to deliver the Lady Marian a message – that I had information about the king and wished to speak to her alone. The stupid guard must have been a bit deaf (I should have realised after he told me that he and his mates were keeping a look out for Robin Wood) and his message to Marian, I later found out, was that I wanted to talk to her about a ring and that I wished to speak to her to atone.

She duly arrived, and there was I dressed in nothing but my thong and a long chemise, which I would be in the act of (innocently) lifting over my head as she entered my bedchamber. Some scuffles and urgent whispers outside my door should have made me suspicious, but I was too busy admiring my exposed butt in the looking glass to pay them any mind and by the time the door was wide open and I turned around, displaying almost all my glorious assets, it was too late. Marian was not standing in my doorway, but that blighter Robin Wood – I mean Hood!

‘Well, well, Guy,’ he said. ‘It seems you were about to show Marian all your worldly goods.’

I reached for my chemise and quick as a flash Hood nocked and loosed an arrow pinning it to the floor. I was about to shout for the guards but thought better of it. I did not want them to see me wearing nothing but a tiny strip of leather even though I was rather pleased with my efforts (I swore the leather-master to secrecy by cutting out his tongue).  

‘Where is Marian?’ I instead demanded. ‘I invited her here on council business.’

‘About to tell her of some new tax, were you?’ Hood enquired. ‘A thong tax, perhaps. Or a new directive that from now on everyone must wear considerably less underwear in order to save on materials.’

‘If you say just one word about this,’ I threatened, as Hood darted forward to retrieve his shot arrow. ‘I will have your guts for garters.’

‘Don’t worry, Gisborne,’ he said. ‘My lips are sealed. Which is more than your buttocks are.’

Then he scarpered and I hastily flung a cloak around my shoulders before the sheriff caught me in my thong. There was no way I wanted to add another one to his list of fetishes.

You would have thought that my day couldn’t get any worse. But it did.

I had instructed a guard to take my illegitimate son – courtesy of a one-night fling with a kitchen maid – to Kirklees Abbey. How hard can it be to convey a tiny baby from the castle to an abbey less than five miles away, I ask you.

It seems that this particular guard, however, rather than being deaf, had absolutely no sense of direction. He got lost in Sherwood and ended up dumping my son under a tree. Fortunately, having collected my wits and burned the damned thong, I was in Sherwood at the same time: I had marked the hooves of the castle horses, which Hood had stolen, and so I came across him and his band of outlaws in the forest, much to my delight. I also saw that the outlaw was clutching my baby. After a brief clash with the outlaws, we managed to capture one of them – Roy. I had quite a bit of fun thrashing him in the castle dungeons (not a euphemism!), trying to get him to reveal the outlaw’s hideout, until the sheriff told me to stop hitting him – spoilsport.

The only good thing to come out of that day was that one of the outlaws met his end: long story, involving Roy’s mother Mary, which I cannot be bothered to write about now. Oh, and the fact that the leather-master is going to be a lot quieter from now on; I cannot stand the little digs he makes about my ‘haphazard stitches’ or the fact that my constantly sniffing leather will have me on a slippery slope and the next thing I know I will be sniffing the sheriff’s nail polish which in turn will lead to latching leeches on my arm, after which there will be no turning back.

On that note, I shall bid you goodnight, dear diary, shove you back under the floorboards where I conceal you and go and find some nail polish and a leech or two.

 


	8. Thursday, November

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the shit.

I have no idea of the date and frankly, I don’t care. After suffering more than two weeks beset by problems, I am seriously thinking of becoming a crusader and going to the Holy Land. I might even kiss King Richard such is my current dislike of the sheriff.

On second thoughts, the Holy Land is damn hot, I recall, and my God how I suffered in my leathers when I went there to kill the king. Arrgh! Must try not to write about my failures so often; it is so demoralising. Anyway, I sweated in places I did not think sweat could accumulate.

Cornwall, where I was some two weeks or so ago, was I have to say, a pleasant respite from trying to avoid getting in the sheriff’s bad books and constantly failing to woo Marian. Though I was unsuccessful in bargaining suitably with the earl who owns most of it and so got nothing for my troubles but a recipe for something called a Cornish pasty that I believe will never catch on. However, it gave me an idea for a castle cookery competition – the Great Castle Cook Off. Hmm, will muse on this. The upshot of not managing to buy Cornwall for the sheriff was that I came back empty-handed and paid for it big time.

The sheriff made me shovel night soil all last week and I ended up with a bad back, absolute agony. Could only walk in a peculiar shuffling manner, which had all the guards sniggering (they won’t be laughing next time I give them drill practise – I’m thinking hot coals!). I found some relief by taking long hot baths (sniggering from the sheriff this time) and drinking copious amounts of wine, along with making some new leather cushions for my bed, a poor replacement for Binky, but I’m rather fond of them.

I am still in some pain, but at least I can ride my horse without grimacing and walk without looking as though I’ve cacked my pants, so progress.

Alas, this week hasn’t been a great improvement on last week.

There were problems at the Treeton Mines. One of the workers said the mines weren’t shored up properly and were a death trap (I nearly asked him if we could swap places; a dodgy mine sounded perfectly idyllic compared to shovelling shit).

When the sheriff arrived, I told him that the miners would rather die than go back down to the mine to which he replied: you’re giving them choices? Personally, I think there’s nothing wrong with having a choice; I had precious little of it as a young man. Anyway, having been put on the spot by the sheriff, I saw that I had no choice – yet again! I thought to brandish my knife, do a bit of threatening, but then instinct took over and I stabbed the outspoken miner. Oh well. He was quite old.

At his burying, the women folk started weeping and wailing the way they do. The sheriff said that he couldn’t stand the noise. Good job then that he didn’t see me pass one of them my handkerchief. I felt sorry for them, see. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve felt like weeping and wailing.

Lepers, the sheriff said. That’s what women are. He knows about my father. I think he said it deliberately, the bastard. Tears filled my eyes. I wished then that I’d kept hold of my handkerchief.

There’s more woes to this day. Hood set fire to the mines, Michael the Red failed to win the silver arrow for me at the Nottingham Fayre, Marian is rubbish at peeling apples, and I accidentally stabbed one of my new leather cushions in a fit of rage and then couldn’t find a handkerchief to blow my nose into. But I don’t want to write about any of that right now. Instead, I shall see if I can come up with some good ideas for the Great Castle Cook Off and possibly indulge in a bit of leather sniffing and solo sex.

 


	9. November, Monday 28th

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nuns and wet bed days.

**Morning**

My back pain – the result of a week of shovelling shit for the sheriff as payback for not successfully purchasing Cornwall for him – mercifully eased last week, though I still had to take care when mounting my horse, or the kitchen wenches.

However, whenever I was in the sheriff’s presence, I feigned agony, hobbling and wincing so that he wouldn’t bother me of an evening when all I wanted to do was collapse on my bed and sleep. I was doing such a good job of it that, unfortunately, when I moaned in so-called pain at the last Council of Nobles meeting, the sheriff suggested he send for Pitts to attend me. I waved him away saying that I could bear the pain. I did not want that excuse for a doctor touching my humors, thank you very much.

Anyway, enough of that and on to recent happenings.

Catastrophe! Marian has told me that she is going to become a nun. And it’s my fault.

I rescued a swooning abbess – the Abbess of Rufford – and brought her into the castle so she could be under our protection. She said outlaws attacked her. The sheriff blamed Hood and his men. I didn’t believe Hood would stoop so low, but was happy, of course, that he got the blame. All was going swimmingly, until Marian dropped that Greek fire on me.

I waylaid her after she had left the abbess. I said I thought we were friends, that in time she might consider marrying me. She said that perhaps she was not the marrying kind. I tried to remain calm but inside my stomach was a butter churn and an out-of-control butter churn at that. No, I thought. You can’t be a nun. You can’t wear one of those ugly habits. You are meant to wear cheeky mustard-colour cardigans and those skirt/trouser things. But that was that. Marian was going to become a bride of Christ and I was going to go back to my room and cry buckets. 

Worse. Once I got back to my room, I remembered the other reason why I hate nuns’ habits so much.

Many years ago, my family were invited to a party where everyone was supposed to dress up. My father chose the theme of religion. Isabella, my obnoxious sister, dressed as an angel and I as a nun (some mix up at the tailors, or so I was told). I stamped and shouted and refused to wear the costume, but my father said he would thrash me if I didn’t and that was that. Isabella laughed so much when she saw me in it that she wet her undergarments. That, I must admit, had me smirking. She’d ridiculed me so often over my wetting the bed of a night, that it was good to get one back at her.

Oh, the embarrassment of wet bed sheets.

My mother, bless her kindly soul, used to wash and dry my sheets out the back of the house, where no one could see. My father had no such compassion and whenever he got his hands on my wet sheets, he would hang them unwashed on the lines near to the village green for all to see. I think he thought he could humiliate me into not wetting the bed any more. Of course, I was mortified. When he had gone to attend to his chores, I would run over to the sheets and pull them from the line. Once, I was in such a hurry to do this, that I got tangled up in one of the sheets and ended up with it wrapped around my head.

‘Oh, look,’ one of the village children said, ‘a ghost that wees from his eyeballs.’

The shame of it.

That night, determined never to suffer such humiliation again, I came up with a plan. After mother had tucked me in, I moved my pillow and covers onto the floor. Removing my hose and undergarments, I lay with my top half covered by a blanket and my bottom half uncovered. There was a loose floorboard by my bed, which I pulled up, and then I laid face down, my little man hanging down into the roof space. I can’t begin to tell you how uncomfortable it was to sleep like that, but it did the trick. My wet slip-ups ended up under the floorboard and my bed was dry every morning. This went on for weeks. My mother praised me to the rafters.

Six weeks after my ‘miraculous dry spell’ the living room ceiling caved in. Wet rot, the master carpenter declared. Rats or mice most likely judging by the awful smell the rotting timbers were giving off.

‘Did you ever hear rats scurrying about under your floorboards?’ my father asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘Because I thought you might kill them and I’ve never had a pet.’

I was moved to a new bedchamber while repairs were undertaken to the ceiling and floorboards. Funnily enough, I never wet the bed again. I was twelve summers old.

**Evening**

Two marvellous things happened this afternoon.

The Abbess of Rufford turned out to be a common thief. She stole all the tax monies hidden in the castle chapel. No laughing matter, I’ll admit. But you should have seen the sheriff’s face, positively puce with rage. Better still, it meant that Marian couldn't go to Rufford and become a nun. Halle-fucking-lujah, Praise the Lord and Amen to that.

 


	10. Friday, 16 December

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ding dong merrily on high.

**Morning**

I write this entry in a hurry, so little time do I have at the moment. Christmas is coming and I’ve a hundred and one things to do. There are presents to buy, the decorating of Locksley Manor to organise and I need to purchase another bottle of brandy to feed the Christmas cake, having drunk the last bottle to drown my sorrows when I thought Marian was about to become a nun.

Fortunately, my present list is small, even more so now that I can cross Annie off the list. Last year, I bought her a new dress. I should have given her a batch of morning-after herbs instead. I’ll bear that in mind next time I decide to shag one of the kitchen wenches.

Marian, of course, but she’s easy; I’ll buy her another horse, a white one this time. Probably won’t wrap it.

I drew Neville, one of the castle guards, out of the secret Santa hat. I drew him last year too. He’s one of the more stupid guards, if that’s even possible. I could probably get away with giving him nothing, or even getting him to give me a present, the idiot. I think I’ll give him dungeon privy duty, even though I gave him the same present last year.

Then there’s the sheriff. Another bird? Nail polish? A tiny jewellery box for his gold tooth? Actually, I know what he wants: me, in fishnet stockings and nothing else, dancing on the table top in the Great Hall while he gives a rousing to speech to no one about operation sha’mat (no idea how you spell that word), after which we will . . .

On second thoughts, make that two bottles of brandy.

 

I suppose I ought to mention what’s been happening since my last diary entry, but the sheriff wants me to help get the Great Hall ready for the castle Christmas party this evening, so a few words will have to suffice.

Some girl called Eleri. Necklace. Marian. Lucky George. Spy in castle. Sergeant. Torture. Eleri. Necklace. Marian. Decoy cart. Marian. Betrayal. Marian. No necklace. Marian. Necklace.

To be honest, I found the whole necklace thing a little confusing, but no matter. The end result is that Marian has agreed to marry me when the king returns to England. To be honest, I’m thinking of writing to King Richard asking him if he could come home now – for say a two week holiday or something – so that I can marry Marian, and then he can go back to the Holy Land. Only the thought of my letter being intercepted stays my hand.

On that note, I am feeling rather chirpy. Perhaps I will enjoy tonight’s Christmas party after all.

**Late, gone midnight**

I survived another God-awful Christmas party, unlike some of the castle guards.

There were less attendees than last year. Economy cuts, the sheriff said. So no nobles or merchants. Just the sheriff, a bunch of sozzled castle guards and me.

There were the inevitable party games, of course.

First off, musical chairs. The sheriff cheated as per usual by tying a chair to his butt so he always had one with him when the music stopped. The guards tripped over the chairs more times than they sat on them. It didn’t matter because the sheriff won of course.

Then we played pass-the-parcel. The sheriff had instructed the lute player to stop playing whenever the parcel was in the sheriff’s hands. Inevitably, he won again.

After a brief interval for drinks and canapés, more games.

A version of Simon Says called Sheriff Says. The more stupid guards jumped off the battlements even when the sheriff didn’t say ‘Sheriff Says’. Blind Man’s Bluff followed, ending in more guards plummeting off the battlements. Deciding that we couldn’t afford to lose any more guards (even though it was funny) we then played Pin the Tail on the Donkey (guess who had to be the donkey!). Only the sheriff managed it, probably because he refused to wear a blindfold, the bastard.

We finished the evening with apple bobbing. The sheriff made those guards still sober enough to stand fill an enormous barrel with water and then said that everyone had to strip naked and get in the barrel in order to play the game. Let me tell you, the water was freezing. At least three guards drowned. Needless to say, the sheriff didn’t take part, instead declaring himself the judge.

I am still shivering now, even though the fire in my room is burning fiercely. I am sure I am going to catch a cold. On the plus side, the sheriff told me that he would not be visiting my bedchamber this evening as he wanted to watch the dead guards being scrapped off the castle courtyard. So, on that rather unpleasant thought, I shall retire to bed and dream happy dreams of wedding Marian.

**Just before dawn**

Woke up at this stupid hour remembering that I still haven’t written my Christmas list, so I shall scribble a few thoughts here and then rewrite my list and ask a rider to take it to Father Christmas, whom I’m told lives some miles from Nottingham – Scotland, most likely.

What I Want for Christmas

A look-alike King Richard, so I can trick Marian into marrying me as soon as

Voodoo Robin Hood doll, including extra long pins to stick it with

Leather tooling gear

Bag of oranges (not one measly one like last year)

Bag of coal (not one measly piece like last year)

Leather bed sheets (for wet slip-ups)

A teddy bear

Leather man-bag (with plenty of pockets for hidden daggers and emergency eyeliner)

To get inside Marian’s knickers (this is a wish rather than an actual item)

A pair of Marian’s knickers (next best thing to above), preferably ones that have been worn but not washed

More guards (not really for me specifically, but after the party this evening we’re terribly short)

Socks

 


	11. Wednesday, 4 January 1195

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good riddance to 1194!

Am I glad to see the back of 1194, an _annus horribilis_ if ever there was. We lost far too many guards, many of them famous, and the sheriff took great delight in saying ‘Torture means Torture’ on an almost daily basis, which really got on my wick.

After the awful pre-Christmas party (one of the reasons for the spate of guards’ deaths), I had no reason to think that my Christmas Day would be any better. However, I am a man who lives in hope, so, after drying myself thoroughly after the apple bobbing game and drinking half a mug of brandy to warm my cockles, I retired to bed hoping to dream happy dreams of wedding Marian and confident that Father Christmas would come calling (I’d dampened down the fire to be on the safe side).  

I dreamed that I got the first of the items on my Christmas wish list, namely a look-alike King Richard arriving on my doorstep enabling me to marry Marian. Unfortunately, my dream then morphed into something far less satisfactory – as dreams are wont to do – and the look-alike turned out to be nothing more than a paper mache moulding. As I was walking towards the church, Marian resplendent in black waiting for me inside, it began to pour with rain. By the time the king had been manoeuvred into place to give Marian away he had gone rather soggy and bits of his face and hands started dropping off. Marian pulled off the wedding ring I’d just handed her, knocked the paper mache king’s head off and punched me, once on the nose and once lower down. Then she fled the church, throwing her funereal veil away and jumped onto a waiting horse, ridden by Robin Hood and his entire gang (it was a very big horse). Needless to say, I awoke in a less than happy frame of mind, and after that the day got progressively worse.

For starters, in anticipation of waking to find lots of presents at the bottom of my bed, I realised I’d woken up just gone midnight, after which I couldn’t get back to sleep (mostly on account of lamenting my failed dream marriage to Marian).

When the sun finally rose and my bedchamber lightened, a servant knocked and handed me a sack. My mood improved. Here were my presents. As I sat on my bed, struggling to untie the rope securing the sack, I thought of the list I’d sent Father Christmas.

 

What I Want for Christmas

A look-alike King Richard, so I can trick Marian into marrying me as soon as

Voodoo Robin Hood doll, including extra long pins to stick it with

Leather tooling gear

Bag of oranges (not one measly one like last year)

Bag of coal (not one measly piece like last year)

Leather bed sheets (for wet slip-ups)

A teddy bear

Leather man-bag (with plenty of pockets for hidden daggers and emergency eyeliner)

To get inside Marian’s knickers (this is a wish rather than an actual item)

A pair of Marian’s knickers (next best thing to above), preferably ones that have been worn but not washed

More guards (not really for me specifically, but after the party this evening we’re terribly short)

Socks

 

Here’s what I actually got

Embroidered picture of King Richard

Doll (not Robin Hood voodoo doll)*

One blunt scalpel

1 orange

1 piece of coal

A leather pillow

A teddy bear knitting kit (needles and wool provided)

Clutch purse (tiny)

A pair of the sheriff’s underpants (unwashed)

One guard (out of retirement)

Gloves (woollen!)

*I actually quite like this one. You can style the hair.

 

I’d just started playing with the doll, when the sheriff bellowed ‘Ho ho ho,’ and flung open my door. He wished me happy Christmas and tossed me some fishnet stockings. Reluctantly leaving the doll on my leather pillow and the other presents scattered on my bed cover, I meekly followed the sheriff to the Great Hall thinking it best to get this bit of Christmas Day over and done with as soon as possible.

Lack of sleep had made me clumsy, however, so I’d hardly danced two steps before I fell off the table cutting off the sheriff just as he was in full flow with his Operation Sha’mat speech. I tore the fishnet stockings too, much to my annoyance. Happily, this put the sheriff right off shenanigans and he dismissed me, saying he would see me at the Christmas feast later.

Once dressed, I left the castle and headed for Knighton to give Marian her present, fervently hoping that my day would improve from here on in.

It didn’t.

When I arrived at Knighton, I was greatly cheered to find a sprig of mistletoe hanging above the front door. I knocked, my heart hammering in my chest, anticipating those rosebud lips on mine. No one answered, so I knocked again. I could hear giggling, so I knew that Marian and Edward were at home. Footsteps. I licked my lips and puckered up. Marian answered the door. She had some weird paper crown on her head. We she saw me she burst out laughing. Undeterred I pointed at the mistletoe and leaned towards her. And kept going.

Let me tell you, they’re not big on rugs at Knighton Hall and those floorboards are damned hard. I’m surprised I didn’t break my nose.

‘You moved!’ Rubbing my bashed nose, I got to my feet.

‘Sorry. My crown slipped.’

The paper crown was indeed covering Marian’s eyes. She pushed it up, clearly trying to keep a straight face.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘Never better,’ I mumbled. ‘Merry Christmas. I have a present for you.’

Without waiting for her to answer, I grabbed her hand and pulled her outside. I had debated about wrapping the white stallion I’d bought her (I love putting on all the tags and bows and ribbons), but in the end I simply saddled it and tied a large ribbon around its neck. Marian gasped, turned and gave me a dazzling smile. She clearly loved my present. Flinging away her paper crown she flung her arms around my neck and kissed me, several times. Actually, that’s a lie. She flung her arms around the horse’s neck and kissed it. Me, she gave a peck on the cheek. Even so, I was happy because she invited me in for a cup of spiced wine to toast the special day.

‘Why were you laughing earlier?’ I asked her.

‘Crackers,’ she said.

I shook my head, not understanding.

Marian pointed to the dining table. On it were several tube-shaped things covered in coloured paper and tied with bright ribbons.

‘Robin Hood delivered them last evening. Not in person,’ she quickly added. ‘They were on the doorstep.’

She had a guilty look in her eye and I wondered then if the mistletoe had been meant for none other than that thieving outlaw.

‘What are crackers?’ I asked.

Marian explained how they contained small gifts, usually of no monetary value, jokes and paper crowns.

I picked one up and shook it. ‘Did Hood make them?’

‘I think Much did, though Robin almost certainly wrote the jokes, because Much can’t read or write. That’s why Father and I were laughing earlier,’ Marian explained.

‘Let me see.’

I started reading the jokes. They were really quite naughty and, I admit, rather funny. I felt my face flushing and it wasn’t the spiced wine. Marian showed one of the jokes to Edward and they both started giggling again. It was clear they had had more than their fair share of wine. Tired of their silliness, I took my leave of them. As I reached the outskirts of Knighton, I turned around to see Marian climbing up onto her white stallion. She promptly fell off. Serves her right, I thought, none too charitably. I headed back to the castle, hoping the feast would be better than last year’s (a badly plucked goose, lumpy custard and an incendiary Christmas pudding – someone decided to set light to it using Greek fire).

The feast wasn’t better than last year’s. The kitchen staff were drunk because some do-gooder by the name of Robin Hood had given them a barrel of wine (which he’d thieved from our cellars!). Consequently, we ended up eating day-old Minestrone soup, followed by insipid apples left over from the apple bobbing game topped with cream that was most definitely off. The only option after that was to get deplorably drunk and wish the day were over.

After he’d sacked all the kitchen staff, the sheriff insisted that we go for a brisk walk to brush away the cobwebs (why oh why does he insist on walking after Christmas lunch every year; it does my head in). Then we came back to the castle, drank loads of wine and played naked Twister, which I have to admit was rather fun, especially when the sheriff put his back out. We skipped dinner (on account of there being no kitchen staff and hence no dinner), watched some awful mummers do their thing and then went to bed – our own beds I’m pleased to say.

After such a horrible Christmas Day I could have cried. However, on entering my bedchamber I saw the presents on my bed and cheered somewhat. I used the piece of coal to blacken the doll’s dress and then cut and styled her hair. I decided to call her Marian.

That’s 1194 done and dusted. Eleven hundred and ninety five can’t possibly be any worse, can it?

 


	12. 3rd March

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, that was a bit of a crap time.

Dear Diary,

I have neglected writing in you for far too long, but when I commit the awfulness that happened to me shortly after the New Year, you will understand why.

After my shitty Christmas, and still mourning tearing the fishnet stockings the sheriff gave me, two terrible things befell me, so terrible that more than once I contemplated jumping off the battlements.

My dog, Mr Paws, died while being taken for a walk by one of the sheriff’s lackeys. I don’t believe for one moment that he slipped his leash (Mr Paws, that is, not the lackey) and plunged from the battlements – I mean, who takes a dog for a walk on the top of a castle anyway?

I believe the sheriff was jealous of the affection I showed the dog and decided to get rid of him. I was terribly upset and cried all the way through dinner and the Council of Nobles meeting. Then, to top it all, I lost Marian. Not the human, living breathing woman of my heart’s desire, but the doll I got for Christmas, the one whose dress and hair I’d lovingly blackened with the piece of coal I got in my stocking, the one I cuddled at night and told all my deepest darkest secrets to. She, like my teddy bear Binky, got chucked down the privy by the sheriff who said I was a complete prissy for playing with dolls and the next thing I knew I’d be playing with tea sets and using my socks as hand puppets (I didn’t let on that I already do that with my socks – they have voices and everything).

Anyway, the loss of both Mr Paws and dolly Marian in the space of a week drove me to the pits of despair and I have no doubt that the sheriff would have chucked me onto a pile of night soil in nothing but my undergarments were it not for the fact that he got called away to London on some business or other and I was left free to wallow in my dog-less, doll-less misery.

Unsupervised, I turned to drink, neglected my duties and my dress sense (I started wearing mustard-coloured undershirts for goodness sake!) and generally let myself go to the dogs [Mr Paws, sniff, sniff]. Such was my misery that I even stopped writing in you, dear diary. In fact, more than once I thought about throwing you onto the fire, except that none of the servants would tend my room while I was in such a state and so there was no fire.

Then the sheriff returned from London, full of cheer for whatever reason. He had bought me a present: a leather man bag. It was great and had lots of pockets and fancy stitching that I could only dream of mastering in my leathercraft classes. Better than the bag (actually no, not better than the bag because the bag was just the best) he bought back some new staff: more guards to replace the ones we lost over the Christmas period, a new scribe (a deaf mute) and, best of all, a young man whose name and job I was not told but who I soon figured must be visiting the sheriff’s bedchamber of an evening as I was no longer called upon to service Vaisey.

These things considerably buoyed my mood. I smartened myself up and gave up drinking overnight (I still drink in the daytime, you understand).

So, here we are, you and me, diary, back in business. Spring is coming, the buds are budding and the sap is rising (whenever I think of Marian my sap often rises and even overflows sometimes).

Time to get on with things, these three especially –

  1. Get back to wooing Marian
  2. Catch blasted Robin Hood
  3. Buy some nice things to go in my new man bag



Yes, things are looking up, aren’t they Mr Sock? (Mr Sock says yes and don’t forget it’s wash day next month).

 


	13. Friday, 10 March

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miserable Day (part 1)

I threw a party yesterday to celebrate the king’s birthday. I’d sooner be celebrating the king’s death, but that would screw up my chances of marrying Marian who promised to marry me when the king returns to England, so, for the moment at least, I must keep reminding myself to utter long live King Richard at every opportunity.

So yes, I had a party, a small gathering at Locksley. To be honest, it would have been smaller (just Marian, Edward, the servants and me) but let’s just say I coaxed a few nobles and townsmen and their wives to attend. I provided wine and nibbles. Marian chastised me saying that pork scratchings and sausage meat rolls hardly constituted a feast, but I’ll be damned if I’m spending all my hard won coinage toasting a king I’d rather see six feet under.

My real reason for the party, in fact, was to announce Marian’s betrothal to me. I figured that if I made it official she would be less likely to try to wriggle out of it. Not that I thought she would after I’d made it clear to her following the necklace business that only I could protect her and her father from the sheriff.

I noticed she was staring daggers at me as I made the announcement, and when I held up her arm to show off her betrothal ring it was like lifting a lead weight such was her resistance to me. I must remember never to challenge her to an arm wrestling contest.

Despite the somewhat lacklustre applause and good wishes from my guests and the nibble bowls being empty by this time, I thought the party was going with a swing. Trust Robin bloody Hood to go and spoil it.

He was on the landing at the top of the stairs, which means he got in by way of an upper floor window. Damn the man and his window entrances. Why can’t he use the door like everyone else? Of course, all the ladies think it’s ever so dashing and wonderful. Truth is, I tried it myself once, thinking to impress Marian. For my troubles, I ended up with a black eye and a ricked ankle. It made her laugh, though, and women are supposed to fancy men who amuse them, though perhaps that means laughing with them rather than laughing at them. After that bumbling entrance, my gift of a bunch of beheaded roses didn’t exactly set her heart all of a flutter. In fact, she ridiculed me by saying to her maidservant: put these stems in a vase of water would you, Mary.

Hood makes it look so easy. He could probably scale a three-storey house and jump in through a window balancing a stack of plates on his head while juggling oranges, the cocky git.

I surmised that offering him a bowl of non-existent party nibbles was unlikely to make him leave. Moments later, his pesky gang arrived.

Hood demanded that everyone remove their jewellery and valuables and hand them to his manservant, who I noticed had found a lone bowl of Twiglets. Having little choice, I told my assembled guests to do as the outlaw asked. Then he had the audacity to prize Marian’s betrothal ring off her finger. Incensed, I went for him with sword and dagger. After a few parries, Hood somehow got hold of my dagger and pinned one of my arms to the wall by driving the blade through the sleeve of my jacket. I wrenched the pinned arm from the wall ripping my sleeve as I did so. Robin’s grin turned into a wide-eyed gape and, just for a second, I wondered if he was recalling his own noble clothes being torn and that we shared a dislike of wearing ripped clothing. However, it was only for a second because I then realised what he was actually registering was the black wolverine tattoo on my arm sporting a neat white scar across it, courtesy of him slashing it in the Holy Land when I tried to kill the king.

Surprise, I said, as though I’d performed some party trick by pulling a dove out of my ear or hot chestnuts from my nostrils. I don’t think I’ve seen the outlaw looking this shocked since the day, as lads, he caught me at the back of the tanner’s workshop, rolling around in a pile of leather off-cuts, noticeably aroused.

Someone warned Hood that the sheriff was on his way and the Saracen boy pushed the dazed outlaw towards the door. I acted quickly and punched the boy in the back with the butt of my dagger, knocking him to the floor. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang, Hood included, made their escape.

I ran outside to chase after Hood, who had Marian’s ring. She implored me to let it go, but I wasn’t having it, so I grabbed a horse and rode after him.

As you’ve probably already guessed, oh silent papery diary of mine, things did not get any better from here on in. In fact, I really should have cut my losses, headed back into the house, dismissed everyone, finished off the Twiglets and fashioned Marian a nice leather ring tooled with the words ‘Guy’s Forever and Ever’. Instead, I kept galloping after Hood.

I will write what followed shortly, for my hand tires, the light grows dim and I have a sudden craving for Twiglets on toast and a bucketful of ale, even though I know I’ll be running to the garderobe all night as a result.

 


	14. Wednesday, 15 March

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miserable Day (part 2)

While galloping after Hood, I tried not to dwell on my failure of a party and the fact that there were unlikely to be any Twiglets left by the time I got back to Locksley. Instead, I imagined all the ways I would torture the outlaw once I had him in my clutches. In truth, I hadn’t expected to catch up with him, knowing that he knew the forest better than I did and that he probably had a dozen boltholes in which to hide. So I was surprised, therefore, to find him unhorsed, standing atop a small rise, quietly waiting for me. It seemed he wanted a confrontation and I was more than happy to oblige.

Hood held up Marian’s betrothal ring and then threw it into the leaves, demanding that I tell him who else was involved in the plot to kill the king. I didn’t tell him, of course. I didn’t have to really, because he knew full well that the sheriff was behind it.

I bent down to pick up the ring, fool that I am, and Hood kicked me in the face. It bloody hurt. Lying on my back, winded, Hood held his stupid curved sword to my throat. I asked if he was about to cut my other arm (a silly thing to say considering he had the sword to my throat, but, as ever, I tend to live in hope). He said that he was going to kill me. Normally, I’d have laughed at this. Robin Hood doesn’t kill, we all know that, but he had a murderous look in his eyes and if his gang hadn’t turned up at that precise moment and convinced him to leave me be then I think I might have ended up like those roses I destroyed when I jumped through Marian’s window, namely headless. Reluctantly, Hood withdrew his sword and punched me instead, knocking me out cold.

When I woke up, I found I’d been gagged and tied to a tree. I hate being tied to trees. As a youngster, I frequently got tied to trees. Often it was Hood and his little playmates who bound me. Sometimes Isabella would trick me when playing hide and seek. She would tell me to stand behind a tree, close my eyes and count to one hundred and then tie me up while I wasn’t looking. Mostly, though, it was my parents who tied me to trees, or bed posts, or washing lines, sometimes even a quintain when jousting season was in full swing. They said it was punishment for misdemeanours, though I had my suspicions that they sometimes did it for fun, entertainment being in short supply in our household thanks to my French mother who never understood the English rules for board or card games, my snotty sister who wouldn’t play and my father, who mostly was away on crusade, but when he did come home kept losing fingers for some unknown reason so he couldn’t hold the pieces or the playing cards (leprosy, I later found out).

Anyway, there I was, bound and gagged with Hood still looking particularly murderous.

However, things then took a strange turn. Hood started arguing with his gang. He wanted to deal with me there and then, his famous justice/trial/evidence code of conduct going right out the window in favour of instant punishment. His gang protested most vehemently, which amused me greatly. Hood grew so exasperated with them that I sniggered and he punched me in the face, twice! It really hurt, though I was more concerned about getting black eyes as my eyeliner wouldn’t show up so well if that happened. Then, joy of joys, the big shaggy one knocked Hood out cold with his staff. They dragged the unconscious outlaw to a tree a short distance from my tree and tied him to it. Ha ha! I thought. A taste of his own medicine at last.

Aside from Hood’s snivelling manservant, the rest of the gang set off for Nottingham in order to save the Saracen boy, Djaq.

When Hood came too, he and Much had words and Hood convinced the simpleton to untie him. Then Hood stomped over to me and demanded I tell him who else was in the plot to kill the king. He said he would kill me whether or not I talked, at which point I thought that there was no point in telling him if he was going to kill me anyway. I wondered if he’d noticed the flaw in his logic, but decided not to point it out in case he punched me again.

He and Much then exchanged heated words. Hood called Much simple. I chuckled, which was a big mistake, and Hood flung a dagger at me narrowly missing my ear.

After that, I decided to suppress any further sniggering, especially when I saw Hood heating up the end of a sword over the flames of a fire. I’ve got to admit that as he held the red-hot blade just an inch or so from my cheek I may have slightly wet myself.

Much decided that torture was not his thing and, after flinging angry words at Hood, he grabbed a horse and rode away. Without my last supporter, as it were, I realised I was in grave danger. Hood pointed the sword at me and my undergarments grew a little wetter.

Hood approached. I mumbled a prayer beneath my breath: please, please God, let my underwear have dried before anyone finds me, and, PS. let me have a dignified look on my face and not be wearing some lunatic expression of abject horror at my impending demise. Hood swung the sword overhand at me. Unexpectedly, it hit the tree above my head, severing the ropes binding me. I experienced a further bit of pants wetting, though out of sheer relief this time.

Hood walked away, sword in hand, then turned and threw the sword into the ground, pointy end first. He put up his fists. He wanted a fistfight. I toyed with suggesting that we settle the matter with arm wrestling or rock, paper, scissors, but the outlaw seemed intent on a punch up and I’ll admit that this suited me a whole lot better than having my throat slit or being flame-grilled.

What followed was a right ding-dong with neither of us particularly having the advantage. When at last we finally slumped to the ground, I think any judge would have called it a draw, except Hood won because he knocked me out. When I came to, I was once again tied to a tree, gagged and blindfolded to boot. I don’t know what went on while I was out cold because I woke to find that the outlaw was unconscious again. Strange days indeed! I wondered whether someone was keeping a tally sheet on which of us, me or Hood, would be knocked unconscious the most times today. I wouldn’t have put it past the one called Allan a-Dale. He seems like one who’s always on the make.

Shortly after coming to, I was dragged towards Nottingham where I understood I was to be exchanged for the Saracen boy who was being held captive in the castle. The outlaws, sans Robin, who they left in the forest along with the simpleton, took me to the Treeton Mines, where the exchange was to take place.

All was going reasonably swimmingly, in that I was about, or so I hoped, to gain my freedom, plus there wasn’t a ruddy tree in sight, when Hood arrived. He told the sheriff about my tattoo and said that the king’s guard knew of it and when the king returned from the Holy Land Robin would spill the beans and the sheriff would be done for. The sheriff didn’t seem in the least put out. He pulled up my sleeve and said _tattoo, what tattoo_? and then produced a vial containing a liquid that he poured over my arm. It burned like buggery. I roared in pain.

Suddenly, several guards burst through the wall, courtesy of an old disused tunnel and I gleefully thought that Hood and his friends were done for. I should have known better. Ropes dropped from above – a forgotten mineshaft – and, predictably, the outlaws escaped.

The sheriff told me to stop mewling and that I should think twice before painting myself like a girl. That’s not what he said about the small butterfly on the underside of my buttocks, but then I guess he was having a bad day. Nowhere near as bad as mine, though.

When I finally got back to my room in the castle, I plunged my burned arm in a bucket of water for a whole two hours. My fingers and hand went all crinkly. Then, to console myself, I spent an hour or so putting things in and taking things out of my new leather man-bag.  

So, there it is, oh diary of mine, another miserable day in my increasingly miserable life. Still, on the bright side, I did get to rough up Hood and it was nice not to be the only one tied to a tree for once. And I didn’t get my cheek fire-branded. In fact, I’m going to try to look on the bright side from now on and dwell on all the good things that happen to me, no matter how small, and try not to dwell on the bad, like rope burns, scorched skin and damp undergarments.

PS. The Saracen boy is actually a girl. Shame on me for not spotting this.


	15. 31 March, Friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's all Greek to me.

My arm is still smarting where the sheriff burned it with that horrible Saracen brew courtesy of Hood’s rescued gang member, Djaq. I’m also still smarting over the fact that I didn’t notice the Saracen had boobs. Small of cup size they may be, but I really should have noticed them when the outlaws gatecrashed my party.

Talking of burned things, this past week I came very close to having a lot more than a scolded arm. In fact, I was lucky not to be burned to a crisp.

It all started at the Treeton Mines when my friend Lambert demonstrated the power of Greek fire to the sheriff. I say friend, but he was more of an acquaintance really. It seemed that he thought of me as a friend, however, as he always addressed me as Guy. I’ll freely admit I only ever knew him as Lambert and have no idea whether that was his first or last name. Anyway, I called him friend because on the few occasions we met, I felt comfortable enough to confide in him about my unhappy childhood and, one time, he listened for a whole hour without laughing.

The idea – my idea – was to use the explosive capability of the black powder to increase production in the mines without endangering lives. Actually that was just the cover story I gave to Lambert for I soon realised that this Greek fire would be of great interest to the sheriff and that we could use it for our own ends.

Unfortunately, Lambert decided that he did not trust Vaisey and after the demonstration changed his mind about selling the powder and the formula to us. This culminated in him being chucked in our dungeons. To be honest, I did feel sorry for Lambert and wished I’d never introduced him to the sheriff.

Vaisey told me I was off the project. So angry! It’s been ages since I’ve been given a project I could get my teeth into. The last time that happened was shortly after Vaisey and I arrived in Nottingham, disposed of Edward, Marian’s father, and took up residence in the castle. I was given the task of re-designing the Great Hall along with our living quarters. I made paper mache models, painted them, even decked them out with little paper people. I still get them out from under the bed from time to time and have a little play, though the last time I did this was when I was in a strop about something or other that the sheriff had done to me and in a fury, I tore off Vaisey’s head.

Right, where was I? Oh, yes, Lambert.

Things took a slight turn for the better when we arrested one of Hood’s men, the simpleton, Much.

This, I proudly told the sheriff, is one of Hood’s inner circle, his right hand man. The sheriff was unimpressed. I suggested that we hang the man, but the sheriff had other ideas and decided to dub him the Earl of Bonchurch. I know, completely bonkers. It was a scheme, of course. The sheriff always has schemes. I profess that half of the time I don’t actually get them, though I always pretend that I do for fear of looking stupid. I certainly didn’t get this one and I was livid that he’d just given away a piece of my Locksley estate. Watching the simpleton donning lordly robes was the last straw and I took my leave of the sheriff and headed outside. Marian found me quietly fuming in the courtyard.

It was my project, I told her, all but stamping my foot, and the sheriff took it away from me. She suggested I rescue Lambert and take him to a place of safety – Kirklees – after which I could work on finding out where the ledger that contains the black powder formula was. I was about to say don’t be so stupid, but then she touched my arm and I went all gooey inside and agreed to it. Honestly, if she’d only touch me a bit more I’d agree to anything, and if she’d touch a certain part of me, and a most impressive part I might add, I’d even agree to killing the sheriff and repainting the castle pink.

I never got the chance to carry out Marian’s plan because the sheriff found out from his spy, Eve (pretending to be a servant at Bonchurch), that Lambert had told Hood where the ledger was and Hood had taken it and hidden it somewhere. So the sheriff stabbed Lambert to death.

Marian was most distressed and I’ll admit even I got a lump in my throat. I tried to tell her that it had everything to do with loyalty, though the truth is it also had a lot to do with me keeping in the sheriff’s good books lest my new leather man-bag go the way of Mr Paws and dolly Marian.

I met Marian again after a ridiculous council of nobles meeting where the sheriff spent much of the time neighing like a horse – something to do with making fun of Hood’s manservant who’d been invited to give his thoughts on the new plough tax to which he said nay. I was about to offer my impression of a sow in labour when I cottoned on to the fact that the sheriff was taking the mickey. Thank God I held my tongue.

I met Marian afterwards in one of the castle corridors. I noticed she was not wearing her betrothal ring. I was angry, especially since I’d spent half a day raking through forest leaves looking for the damn thing after dropping it during the punch up with Hood. I explained to her that I had had no choice in the Lambert matter. She said she would wear the ring again but that we would never find ourselves in a similar situation and that everything was back in its box, whatever that means.

The whole day ended disastrously, as so many of my days seem to.

Hood, thanks to Eve’s treachery, tricked us over the ledger and I unwittingly led him straight to the cave where I’d hidden the three barrels of Lambert’s black powder. As always, Hood was one step ahead of me. Hidden from view, he had waited for us to arrive. As I was above to begin moving the powder, Hood sent a flaming arrow towards the cave. The resulting explosion flattened me and singed my leathers. I’ve never been so humiliated. (Actually, I have, dozens of times.)

So, dear diary that was my week. A not good one by all accounts. I lost a sort of friend. I probably won’t get touched by Marian again for ages. I’ve further reinforced the notion that I’m a fool and I have slightly melted leathers. And to top it all, I have no idea where this box is that Marian spoke of. I shall ask her next time I see her.

 


	16. Thursday, 6 April

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not got the stomach for it.

After my disagreement with Marian over the Lambert affair, I was desperate to get back into her good books. The sheriff suggested I buy her a trinket or two. So far, trinkets (horrible flashback to tasselled leather bra) have not been working too well. Still, yesterday morning, noticing her fawning over a horse in the castle courtyard I had an idea. I would buy her a horse. I then remembered that I had bought her a horse for Christmas – a white one – but I figured another wouldn’t go amiss, so I bought her a brown one.

She seemed delighted when I took the blindfold off her (naughty thoughts of her in my bedchamber, me wearing nothing but a blindfold, her in a leather one-piece) and revealed the splendid brown stallion, but almost immediately, she queried the expense. I told her it was nothing, indicating that I had wealth and could afford to provide for her and a stableful of horses if that was her desire. 

I suggested she try out the horse, so she mounted and galloped off – no thank you kiss, no invite to ride alongside her – she just rode off. How’s that for gratitude!

I waited for more than an hour, thinking she would just ride around Knighton or something, but she never came back, so I begrudgingly rode back to the castle remembering on the way that we had some stupid Saracen prince – Malik – visiting and I was expected to join him and the sheriff for an evening meal. My stomach quailed at the thought of sheep’s eyeballs and badger’s brain and all the way back to Nottingham I considered how I could get away with not eating any of it.

Malik appeared to be as disgusted by the food as I was and we both ended up pushing it around out plates and occasionally dropping bits on the floor when the sheriff wasn’t paying attention. Tears filled my eyes when I thought how not so long ago Mr Paws would have happily devoured anything that fell off my plate.

I went to bed hungry.

The next morning I was to take Malik to look for his wagon, which had overturned in the forest on his way here. We found it after some searching – the damn thing was painted green, so it wasn’t easy to find with all the new spring growth on the trees. But, no sooner had we found it, than the outlaws started loosing arrows at us and kidnapped Malik. I was incensed, especially when I realised that the sheriff would most likely send me to bed without supper and after not eating last evening I was somewhat on the famished side.

The sheriff, predictably, called me names and I feared further punishment when he had me on my own, but then joy of joys Malik entered the castle, seemingly unharmed. I presumed he had escaped the outlaws. Perhaps he’d turned up his nose at the forest fare they served him, squirrels not being so different from the muck the sheriff offered him last evening. Anyway, all was looking up and our plan, or rather the sheriff’s plan, of ransoming Malik could continue.

But, as ever, just when it looked as if everything was going to go our way for once – the ransom arriving along with a gaggle of pretty women – it all went pear-shaped.

There was no ransom and the pretty Saracen women turned out to be brutal killers. They’d come not to hand over a ransom but to assassinate the prince. Oh happy days, I thought. As if glazed sheep’s brain wasn’t bad enough, I was now about to have my eyeballs gouged out by crazed ninja women and I doubted strutting around the hall in my gleaming leathers offering a taste of my assets would appease them.

So then all hell broke loose and I did what any respectful knight would do in the circumstances and played dead.

While I was on the floor wishing I were anyway but in the castle, a well, a cesspit, anything would do, some mad man called Harold – with tattoos that put my squalid acid-smudged tattoo to shame – killed all the ninja women and saved the prince.  So, no ransom for the sheriff and me – downside – but no more yucky badgers’ intestines to eat, so silver linings and all that.

PS. I would write about what happened to me on 1 April (Fool’s Day) but there’s a limit to the embarrassing material I am prepared to commit to parchment and this was a humdinger: let’s just say feathers were involved.

 


	17. Wednesday, 26 April

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A spillage here, a spillage there.

Well, dear diary, it was good to get back to eating proper food and not having crazy women throwing deadly Christmas decorations at me. Fortunately, the sheriff quickly forgot to take the failure of ransoming Prince Malik out on me, instead launching into another one of his ridiculous schemes. This one even had a name – Festival of Pain.

It all sounded a bit grisly to be honest, but as long as it didn’t involve me in anything other than the props department, then I can’t say I particularly cared. None of Locksley’s peasants have paid me the slightest courtesy in the time I have been their overlord and I believe they all mock me behind their backs. I really should do something to gain their respect but I can’t think what. Some of them are of an age to recall my wet bed sheets flapping in the breeze and the only way I can keep them from blabbing is to put the fear of God into them and that’s not going to endear them to me, I know.

If only I could marry Marian now I know it would make all the difference. The peasants respect and admire her; some even appear to be her friends. If she were under my roof, I’d hang out my soiled sheets with pride, for they would speak of our love and devotion to each other.

[Sorry, diary, I am feeling a bit squirmy now; time to dig out some naughty parchments to wank over. Will write more later.]

**Later**

The sheriff gave me the task of escorting the taxes to London. I was glad, as I didn’t really want to sit through his stupid Festival of Pain. It would be good to spend some time away from him and his horrible griping at me. In fact, I was feeling in a somewhat buoyant mood. True, Marian was still being offish with me over the Lambert affair, but we were on speaking terms and I had an almost good moment with her when I had a guard deliver her portmanteau to her room (I came along too). I expressed my feelings in my usual less than eloquent way (to Marian, not the guard or the portmanteau, I mean). Although she said that she did not, at that moment, wish to ‘know me better’ or indeed allow me to ‘know her better’, she didn’t imply that that situation might not change in the future, so progress I think.

My buoyant mood did not last, alas.

No sooner had I and my guards ridden out of the castle gates with the tax monies destined for London than I heard the gates slam behind us and the bars clanking down. I immediately knew something was wrong. I called a halt and used my knife to slit open one of the sacks. Grain spilled onto my boots. The next sack was the same. And the next. We had been tricked, and no guesses who was behind it!

At this point, I seriously considered changing my profession, becoming a laundry maid, perhaps. Oh, yes, I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on women’s smalls. Wouldn’t mind them getting their hands on my smalls either, and I’m not talking small for I am actually rather well-endowed, especially when I’m reading those naughty parchments I keep hidden under the bed. Some even have drawings. I like those ones best. Right then, however, I was stuck with being the sheriff’s master-at-arms and responsible for explaining why our sacks of coins were no longer sacks of coins. Somehow, I didn’t think that telling the sheriff that we could at least make lots of bread would soothe him. I only hoped that he was enjoying his Festival of Pain; I feared my own festival of pain would not be long in coming.

Eventually, we got the barred gates open and chased back to the castle. The great hall appeared to be empty, but there was a moaning noise coming from behind the sheriff’s sheet-covered contraption that made me think otherwise. I feared the worse, or possibly the best! I was right. It was the sheriff, upside down, bound to his torture contraption by his hands and feet, gagged and bare-chested. I suppressed a grin. It made a change for him to be the one trussed up like a chicken. Many a time I had spent in a similar way in the sheriff’s bedchamber, him all randy and me all giddy with a blood rush to the head, unable to think of our safe word and sometimes even when I did remember it the sheriff would say that he had changed it and I had to guess. Sometimes I was bound like that for several hours.

Spluttering with rage, the sheriff demanded that I cut him loose. I sent the guards who were with me out of the hall, ostensibly to check for outlaws, but really so I could be alone with the sheriff. I spent ages getting him down, protesting that I was having trouble with the knots. Finally, he yelled at me to use my knife and I did so, being unable to come up with any plausible reason why I would not be carrying any blades. He fell to the floor with a thump. I fussed over him for all my worth, all the while swallowing down my laughter.

So, diary, it hasn’t been the best of days, but it certainly hasn’t been the worst. I might even make some bread tomorrow if my duties allow.

 


	18. 9 May, Tuesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good news, bad news.

Good news! I made sixteen loaves of bread this morning (from the grain that should have been sacks of coin) and nearly all of them were edible. Those that weren’t (I forgot to add yeast, I burned them to a crisp, etc) I gave to the guards as a little addition to the rat stew on tonight’s menu.

Actually, that wasn’t the good news I wanted to write about.

This is the good news – the king is returning to England!!!!!!! What’s more, he’s coming to Nottingham. I can marry Marian. Yippee!

After learning of these glad tidings, I hurriedly saddled my horse (so hurriedly that I didn’t fit the saddle securely on Brutus’s back and a mile out of Locksley it slipped sideways and I fell off and landed in a puddle). To be honest, I could have fallen in Locksley pond or even the River Trent and my spirits would not have been broken, for I was in love and rushing to see my bride to be. Thinking about it, though, perhaps my spirits would have been broken had I landed in either pond or river because I can’t swim.

Happily, leather dries fast in the sun and that day (and rightly so) the sun was shining gaily, the birds were singing, insects were buzzing and butterflies were dancing prettily in the light breeze. See how happy and in love I am! Normally, I hate the sun in my eyes, the dawn chorus makes me want to stick pins in my ears (or in the birds themselves), insects are only good for swatting and butterflies are, well, all right because I have a small one tattooed on my lower buttocks, but too colourful by far.

I had meant to tell Marian the good news in a cool and collected manner, swinging down manfully from my great brute of a stallion, sauntering over to her, my legs ever so slightly parted to remind her of my glorious assets, with a dazzling smile on my face because, for a 12th century man, I don’t half have good teeth. Instead, I got all giddy and stupid with the thought of finally seeing Marian in a wedding dress (preferably in black, but I’ll go with her choice) waiting for me at the altar and cocked it up. I tumbled off the horse ungraciously because my damp leathers had stuck to the saddle and my walk was all wobbly because I suddenly felt all shy and sick and stupid.

I started to speak and then, in the knowledge that I wasn’t good with words, decided instead to take action and without warning scooped her off her feet and slung her over my shoulder. To my complete surprise, she somehow broke free of my grasp, slid off my back, cartwheeled a yard or two away from me and landed squarely on her feet without so much as a wobble. I was impressed. I’d never learned that kind of grace when I did ballet lessons with Isabella. Marian seemed angry with me, though I don’t blame her. Who likes being slung over someone’s shoulder like a sack of grain without a by-your-leave? I apologised, saying that I only wished to sweep her off her feet. Swallowing down my embarrassment (quite a mouthful, I’ll tell you), I requested that she come with me to Locksley as there was something I wanted to show her (my wealth, which is not a euphemism, but it probably should be).

Although she didn’t exactly skip around my bedchamber when I showed her all the coins in my chest, she did look interested. I’ll admit I was quietly confident that this marriage was going to work out rather well. What’s more, it will be soon as the king is arriving in Nottingham this coming Saturday. That thought sent me into something of a panic, as I realised there was much to do before the great day. I must demand some of the peasants decorate Locksley church while others are busy preparing the food that will be consumed at my – correction, our – (our, oh what a lovely word, our) wedding feast. Then I will need to arrange for someone to bring wine from the castle cellars to Locksley (I should probably keep this quiet. Don’t want the sheriff sticking his oar in and limiting me to two bottles of Burgundy and some cheap white plonk). And, most importantly of all, I should make sure that Locksley’s bed linen is given its annual wash a month early.

As if all this wasn’t wonderful enough, last evening I caught the Night Watchman trying to steal the money I’d shown to Marian just hours before. I was over the moon that in the space of a day not only was I within a whisker of securing Marian as my wife but also that I had finally caught that do-gooding masked thorn in my backside. I couldn’t wait to find out who was behind that mask. I half-wondered whether it was Hood, playing some kind of silly game with me or maybe fulfilling some kind of mask fetish that he had, but dismissed this idea because the Night Watchman was of a different build to Robin Hood, shorter and with bigger pecs.

I had all but broken the door down with an axe when the blasted outlaws turned up. The Night Watchman, realising he had allies, came out of my bedchamber and made his escape down the stairs, clutching a sackful of my wealth. I couldn’t stop him, though I did manage to punch him in the stomach as he rushed towards the door. Yes, I thought, after he and the outlaws had gone. For in my hand I held the curved dagger I keep hidden up my sleeve. The dagger was dripping with the Night Watchman’s blood. Gotcha! I said, smirking. I like smirking.

The day just got better with the sheriff, some guards and me finding Hood and his gang’s cave hideout in the forest, thanks to Pitts (the physician who covered for me while I was in the Holy Land trying to kill the king). Arrgh, I must stop writing about my failed mission because it gets me all het up. Anyway, Pitts managed to leave a trail of bandages that led us straight to the outlaws’ hideout.

I have to admit that with all this good fortune – some decent batch loaves, the king’s imminent arrival, the injuring of the NW – finding the outlaws like this made me almost delirious with joy. Finally, after so many frustrations and miserable evenings spent alone in my bedchamber all my birthdays – past, present and future – had come at once. I was so happy I came close to singing and even thought about adding a bit of falsetto just for show. Hood stopped me in my tracks. He burst my bubble, took away all my presents, sat me on the naughty step and threatened me with a damn good thrashing, metaphorically speaking. What he actually did was start loosing arrows, not to frighten us off, but to kill. What the fuck was going on? Robin Hood, Earl of Huntingdon, Hero of Acre, that do-gooding non-killer had suddenly decided that he was bored with deliberately missing his targets and was going to go for the bull’s-eye. With guards dropping like flies (do flies actually drop?), we had no choice but to retreat.

More misery followed.

On returning to the castle, the sheriff told me that the real King Richard was not in fact coming to Nottingham, not even to England. It was a ruse. The sheriff had arranged for someone to impersonate the king so that we could find out how many of our so-called noble friends were, in fact, against us. I briefly recalled my nightmare of a paper mache King Richard, soggy from the rain, bits falling off him as Marian and I said our wedding vows. I was livid. How dare Vaisey not tell me about this. I said as much to him through clenched teeth. He waved me away saying that no one would be any the wiser because no one who was anyone (or even if they were no one) would know what the real king looked like. Therefore, I could still go through with my marriage to Marian. It did not sit easy on me, I can tell you. Nor did the thought that we might find out that Edward, Marian’s father, might be one of the rebels. The sheriff said that if he were, he would hang him. Somehow I didn’t think that hanging my father-in-law would go down well as a marriage gift to my bride.

I stormed off to my room and quietly seethed. Why did nothing go my way? I’d dreamed of a perfect day: the ring, confetti, cheers, the consummation of our marriage and a few nice wedding gifts – black picture frames, toasting forks, that kind of thing. Instead, my wedding will be presided over by a fake king who will likely give himself away the moment he arrives by introducing himself as Geoffrey of Monmouth or the local blacksmith who does a bit of king impersonating as a sideline.

Despairing of my dark thoughts, I decided to go and visit Marian. Maybe talking to her would bring me some cheer.

When I arrived at Knighton, Edward informed me that Marian had injured herself. I assumed while doing her embroidery, but the old fart said that he thought she might have had a fall in the woods. It all sounded a bit suspicious and I demanded to see her at once.

It appeared that Edward had spoken the truth. Marian was in bed. She was pale and I said I would send for a physician. Edward said it was not necessary, that maybe the excitement of the wedding caused her to look so ashen. Is that why she fell in the woods? Giddy with anticipation of our nuptials, she had tried to make some crazy jump on her horse. Whatever the case, I decided not to call for a physician after all, not that there were many to choose from. Pitts was dead, arrowed to death on the sheriff’s order because he was no longer of use to us. Blight might have sufficed, but he’d probably just cover Marian with leeches and I didn’t like the idea of those squirmy things getting to touch Marian before I did. The old crow, Matilda, might have helped, but I was in no mood to be called a steaming dog turd or any other kind of turd for that matter, so that ruled her out.

Edward invited me to tell Marian whatever it was I had come to tell her, but in truth I had no idea what I wanted to say to her other than to make sure she was still going to marry me on Saturday. Mumbling ‘the wedding excites me too’ I took my leave.

Not long after my return to Locksley, Marian turned up, still rather pale but looking perkier than earlier. I thought perhaps she had come to talk of our wedding. Instead, she asked me if I had tried to kill the king in the Holy Land. To say I was caught off-guard was an understatement. After regaining my composure somewhat, I told her that she shouldn’t listen to rumours. I told her that the day the king returns is a happy one for me for it is the day I marry her (which actually doesn’t hold up as an argument because at the time that I tried to kill the king the possibility of marriage to Marian was as likely as me ditching my leathers in favour of wearing baggy linen trousers and over-shirts in various shades of beige).

She looked dubious, so I leaned in and kissed her, which had the desired effect of flustering her, so that she dropped the subject and said she had to go. I demanded that she tell me that she believed my denial. She said she did. Then she left.

I went to bed in a happier frame of mind. Despite Marian’s suspicions of me, despite the king being a fake, despite the Night Watchman still being at large and the fact that Hood had become a suicidal killer, Marian was still going to marry me.

I slept and dreamed that the king was made of bread and after the wedding where, curiously, I was dressed from head to toe in beige sacking, I buttered the king and ate him at the wedding feast. Then I led Marian to our bedchamber whereupon we argued over the colour of the bed linen and she punched me in the face with her newly-ringed hand.

 


	19. Wednesday, 7 June

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wedding day woes!

My last diary entry was almost a month ago. Had I developed writer’s cramp or even writer’s block since then? Had I been spending all my spare hours having rampant sex with Marian, my wife of almost four weeks? Had I turned over a new leaf since marrying Marian and become a do-gooding tree-hugger like Hood, decked out from head to toe in forest green? No, no and no is the answer. True, I get a bit of cramp in my writing hand from time to time, but that has nothing to do with clutching a quill and penning my thoughts. Nor have I been spending all my spare hours having unbridled sex with Marian because she has not been my wife for the past three and a bit weeks; indeed, she wasn’t even my wife for three and a bit minutes because the wedding day, which started so well, went disastrously wrong (given my track record, I suppose I should not have been surprised). This, of course, ruled out the do-gooding, wearing green thing, the only chink of light in the ginormous pit of darkness that I found myself in.

I am told that putting ones woes down on parchment is cathartic, so, with that in mind, I have decided to record the events of my wedding day, after which, if I don’t feel any better, I shall go boil my head in a tub of scorching hot pitch.

I spent the eve before my wedding deciding which shade of black I should wear and eventually plumped for a dark black with matching boots. I also tested out a few different hairstyles, including having a go at curling my hair with an old pair of Isabella’s curling tongs that I found at the back of a cupboard. There were no instructions, so I simply guessed how long I should heat them up for. One burned scalp and a lock of scorched hair later, I decided on a simple slicked back style. Earlier in the day, I had picked up the ring. I’d told the jeweller I wanted a rock people would notice. What he fashioned for me was more boulder than rock, but I figured that if Marian thought it too big, or indeed too heavy, then we could always get a bit chipped off.

On the wedding morning, full of nerves (I must have visited the garderobe at least twenty times) I sought out Thornton. I asked if his wife, long dead now, had understood him, to which he said that he thought she had. Then I told him that I had committed heinous crimes but that by taking Marian in holy wedlock I would wash away those crimes. To be honest, I’d probably have to marry her, her dead mother and the Abbess of Kirklees to wash away the number of crimes I’ve committed, but I figured marrying Marian was a good start. Afterwards, I thought it was perhaps a mistake admitting such a thing to Thornton, but decided that once Thornton had dealt with our bloodied sheets the following morning then I could quietly do away with him.

Marian’s coach duly arrived and she walked towards me. She was beautiful even though she’d decided on a white dress rather than black. I walked up to her and said that I hoped the decorations around and in the church pleased her. I didn’t add that I’d spent much of the previous two days scrunching up ink-dipped parchment in order to make the black roses the peasants of Locksley had been unable to provide me with. Marian said, somewhat flatly, that the decorations did please her. She didn’t even look at them! She then said that I should not be there. What did she mean? That another man should be in my place, Hood perhaps. I wanted to hit somebody, anybody. Who should be here? I asked, biting down on my rising ire. Marian told me I should be inside the church, waiting for her. Silly me. How embarrassing! I’d never been to a wedding before, other than in my head, where the only thing that happened was that some churchman rattled off a load of incomprehensible Latin after which the bride and groom kissed chastely and then headed straight for their bedchamber where they ripped off their clothes and spent the next three days humping like rabbits. Feeling somewhat chastened, I went inside the church and waited. That was the point at which it all went terribly wrong.

Without warning, the church bells began to ring wildly. Even though I’d not been to a wedding before, I knew that wasn’t right. I knew it was even more not right when that stupid idiot servant of Robin Hood started shouting ‘Stop the wedding, Stop the wedding! It’s not the king.’ After, and if, I boil my head in pitch, his will be next! ‘The king is an imposter,’ he continued. ‘The king is not in Nottingham!’

Canon Bond, performing our wedding spoke: Whether the king is in Nottingham or not, that has no bearing on a wedding.

Halleluiah, I thought. This day might yet turn out all right. Marian asked me if I knew about the king being a fake, to which I said that it made no difference. I tried to tell her that what mattered was our happiness, that and having lots of sex and making babies to carry on the Gisborne line, dressing them up in little leather baby-grows and so on. She cut me off on the word happiness, accusing me of lying to her, and from then on in it was downhill all the way.

‘Gisborne went to the Holy Land,’ the idiot yelled. ‘He tried to kill the king.’

I stared straight ahead, fighting tears. There would be no rampant sex with Marian, no little leather booties. ‘I have done wrong,’ I told her. ‘But you will wash away my sins.’ As excuses went, I’ll admit that this one needed some work.

Marian wanted to know who the supposed king was, so I told her that it was a ruse by the sheriff to flush out his enemies. She immediately realised her father was in danger. I told her that as my father-in-law he would be protected, big emphasis on the words father-in-law. 

The idiot continued to shout stuff about me (all true, of course) and I ordered my men to drag him away. Unfortunately, he kept on spouting truths, about me being a traitor and a liar, which he topped off by saying that Marian’s heart belonged to another. My own heart dropped to my boots because I knew who that other was that he was referring to.

‘Remember your father,’ I growled at Marian.

She told the simpleton he was wrong and agreed to go ahead with the wedding. I snapped at the priest to get on with it and then slipped the ring onto Marian’s finger. Rampant sex and leather cot mobiles here we come! Marian removed the ring from her left ring finger and slid it on her right. Oh dear, stupid me, I thought. They must have changed the rules about wedding rings, which I wouldn’t know about, of course, having never been to a wedding. Then Marian punched me. God, how I regretted buying her such an enormous rock. She ran out of the church. I rubbed my throbbing cheek while trying very hard not to bawl my eyes out.

My guards offered to catch her for me, but I told them to let her go, all thoughts of rampant sex and soiled leather nappies replaced by that of revenge.

And that, dear diary, was my wedding day, the supposedly most joyful day of one’s life. I’d been embarrassed, revealed as a traitor and punched by my bride-to-be. As I stood in the church, peasants and nobles whispering and tittering all around me, I pictured the freshly laundered black sheets on the marriage bed I’d prepared for that night. I thought of the cheese and cucumber sandwiches that would remain uneaten, their corners curling in the summer sun. I thought of the hours I’d spent making those black parchment roses.

They say time is a great healer, but it’s been nearly a month since that day and I’m still angry and miserable and, most of all, embarrassed by the whole shambles of a wedding. Writing this account has not helped. This leaves me with two choices: revenge or boiling my head in pitch. I think one can take being decked from head to toe in black a step too far, so revenge it will have to be.


	20. Monday, 17 July

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snakes and stuff!

As you can see, dear diary, I did not stick my head in boiling pitch following my non-wedding to Marian. However, I did spend almost two weeks drinking myself into a stupor following that disastrous day and then a further two weeks alternating between utter despair and plotting my revenge. Fortunately, the sheriff was much occupied during this time and if he noticed my lack of attendance on him, he did not seem to mind.

As revenge goes, my ideas – varying from cutting up all of Marian’s dresses to marrying a trollop from the Trip Inn – were rather feeble. Last evening, when I was no nearer to deciding what to do about Marian, the sheriff summoned me to his war room. He wasn’t there when I arrived, so I walked glumly around the giant three-dimensional map that sits in the middle of the room, wishing that the bowls of fire spaced around the circumference of the map were bowls of nibbles rather than flames and wondering whether I might be better off moving to Scotland rather than trying to think up suitable ways to get back at Marian for snubbing me at the altar. I was still considering whether I could cope with eating haggis and wearing tartan when the sheriff silently crept into the room, startling me.

Tell me, he said. You would rather have a woman than all this power. He waved at the map. We are so close, he said. And he gave a dramatic sniff, as if power were some magical herb he could filter up his nostrils. Sadly, it is not. I know this because my own enthusiastic sniffing has given me nothing other than a noseful of some stench or other and the intense desire to sneeze. Talking of our leper friends, the sheriff said, it’s time to go and get the pretty one and her daddy. This he said while poking me in the ribs, which I wasn’t happy about, but at least he isn’t poking me in my nether regions any more, so small mercies and all that. If they resist, shall I use force, I asked. The sheriff told me to use force anyway.

On the ride to Knighton, I mulled over how I could humiliate Marian the way she had humiliated me. To be honest, nothing I could come up with came close, so straightforward nastiness would have to suffice.

On arriving, I shouted for Marian and Edward to leave the house at once. I pounded on the door and then kicked it in for good measure. It felt good, though not as good as stabbing some random peasant with a sword, but satisfying nonetheless.

In the main hall, I smelled soup: minestrone, I think. My mouth watered. If only things were different. If only Marian were standing in front of me smiling and saying: husband dearest, you’ve been working so hard today you must be exhausted, but see I’ve made you some soup with chunks of fresh bread to dip into it, and my father is not here because I’ve sent him off to live elsewhere, the doddery old fool, so it’s just you and me and after supper we can . . .

I shook myself out of my silly little daydream and ordered one of my guards to hold Edward, while I waited for Marian to appear. When she did not, I shouted her name and when she still didn’t appear, I issued a threat: come down now or I will torch your house.

She rushed down the stairs, calling for her father. You come when I say, I said. You are coming to the castle. The sheriff wants you where he can see you. Marian protested, saying that her father was too frail and demanding I release him. You do not tell me what to do, I yelled, reminding me of a slanging match I’d had with my sister Isabella when we were playing dress up and she insisted that I had to wear the lacy knickers because they gave her a rash. Hood and the other village boys and girls laughed for weeks about it. Recalling this embarrassing episode enraged me further and I ordered one of my guards to burn the house.

Instantly, I wished I hadn’t said that. My parents died in a fire that I started, and although they got on my nerves sometimes, I had no wish to see them dead (to be fair, my father was on the way out anyway, but still). However, I could hardly retract my command without looking like an indecisive idiot. What could I say instead? Singe the house a little, burn a couple of chairs outside in a suitable clearing, throw Edward’s hot soup over the walls.

Marian grabbed my arm, begging me not to. Hearing her beg was what I’d been hoping for and I was going to milk this situation for all it was worth. The guard carrying the torch queried whether to set light to the house or not. I ordered Marian to beg. After glancing at her cowardly father, Marian said: Sir Guy, please, I beg you. Much better, I said. But still not good enough. My parents and that terrible fire forgotten, I snatched the torch out of the guard’s hand and set fire to some curtains.

No, no, Marian screamed. Don’t burn my house.

No hesitation now. I was starting to enjoy the power I had over her. I set fire to a table. The house was surely doomed. I dragged Marian out the front door and my guards led Edward outside. If I’d really wanted to rub salt into the wound I would have toasted marshmallows on the burning house, but, unfortunately, I didn’t have any marshmallows on me.

The next day, Marian implored me to obtain the release of her father, insisting that a draughty castle is no place for an old man. I retorted: you think you can humiliate a man at the altar. A man like me, and get away with it? Marian saw then that incarcerating her and her father in the castle was her punishment for jilting me. You’re wrong, I said, and walked away, my best sneer on my face.

The day kept getting better. At the Trip Inn, I caught one of Hood’s men playing at cups. Gotcha, I said. And to top it all, the sheriff’s sister (a ghastly woman with pet snakes) fooled Robin Hood into rescuing her from the marketplace by pretending to be an innocent peasant with children, taking a punishment for their sakes, and eighteen of our guards surrounded him.

By late afternoon, all was in place. Allan a-Dale in the dungeons, being tortured, the Black Knights assembled in the war room and Robin Hood tied by the wrists, hanging above a pit full of snakes. Death by fanging, the sheriff said. He and his sister Davina laughed, while I smirked from the wings. This was going to be even more entertaining than hearing the roar and crackle of flames as I rode away from Knighton.

The sheriff told Hood that I wanted to ask him a question.

Who is the Nightwatchman? I asked. He said he didn’t know, the fat liar. I punched him in the stomach with his precious bow. We exchanged unpleasantries and I whacked him a couple more times. Then, surprise surprise, the Nightwatchman appeared. Some guards and myself took off after him. After some frustrated searching, we cornered the blighter sitting on a beam above us in a castle corridor. I pulled out my small curved dagger, the one I cut him with when he stole my monies. Remember this, Nightwatchman, I said. He dropped to the floor and two of my guards grabbed his arms. Take off your mask, I demanded, I want to see your face when you die. He kicked away my dagger and then kicked me in the groin. While I was down, he kicked and punched the guards. The sheriff joined the fray, but ended up with an elbow smashed into his face. The Nightwatchman then jumped over the low wall into the courtyard below. He’s mine, I snarled, drawing my sword and heading for the steps; no way was I going to do that jump. I’d probably break both my legs knowing my luck.

The Nightwatchman headed for the main gate, dispatching guards en route and dispatching me with another kick to my groin. My God, I thought, I hope I can have children after this, or if not children, then sex at least. He reached the gate, but a gaggle of peasants blocked it. Even so, I expected him to make it through, but instead he ran towards a tower entrance. What is he doing, the sheriff yelled. Why isn’t he running away? The penny dropped. He’s creating a distraction, he bawled at me. I chased after him, two guards at my side.

Unsurprisingly, the Nightwatchman gave us the slip and I returned to the war room empty-handed. There I found the sheriff cradling his dead sister, Hood no longer hanging from the ceiling. It didn’t take a genius to work out what had happened. My day was no longer getting better, and was about to get a whole lot worse.

In the marketplace, I found and confronted Hood. With guards’ arrows trained on him, there was no escape. Shoot him, I told my men. It was as easy as that. Except that it wasn’t, because my life is never easy. His gang appeared out of nowhere, downing my men and then the Saracen woman threw pepper in my eyes. Ouchy ouch, it hurt. Predictably, Hood and his gang escaped. As my eyes were already streaming from the pepper, I took the opportunity to have a little weep.

Returning to my bedchamber, I stuck my head in a bucket of water, not to drown myself (though the thought crossed my mind), but to take the sting out of my poor eyes. It did the trick. Hoping to cheer myself up, I headed down to the dungeons to torment Allan a-Dale, a fresh bucket of water on my arm.

The outlaw’s head was hanging down when I entered the dungeon, so he didn’t see me coming. I doused him with the water. Been having fun? I asked. He ignored me, so I tried again. Hood was here, did you know? Didn’t try to rescue you, did he. That got the outlaw’s attention. So, I said, I was thinking. One chance to live.

I’m not helping you kill Robin or anyone, he protested.

I respected that, and told him so. An exchange, I suggested. As we go along. A little information, a little money, a conversation.

The outlaw became interested. What sort of conversation?

A harmless one, I said. If I need extra guards on a building, you let me know. If I need to reroute a convoy, that sort of thing. I’m not robbed and Robin isn’t killed. I said some more stuff and then held up a purse in front of the outlaw’s face. You’ll never be named, I said. You will never be implicated. This is just between you and me. I kept the purse where he could see it and when I’d said all I needed to say, and was sure I had his interest, I walked away, the purse dangling by my side. Gotcha again, I thought.

So, a day of pluses and minuses.

Hood still alive – minus.

Davina dead – plus (I didn’t like her)

Snakes gone – plus (I feared the sheriff might hide one in my bed as a form of punishment for failing to capture the Nightwatchman yet again)

Nightwatchman alive – minus

Allan a-Dale my spy – plus

That makes three pluses and two minuses, so, overall, not such a bad day after all.

Note to self: no more pepper on the dining table.

  


	21. October

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a hot spot of bother

Dear Diary, it’s been a while. Things have happened. Hood and his gang broke into the sheriff’s strong room while some idiot Bavarian count was playing at the sheriff’s gaming tables. Marian got very lovey dovey with the count, so I wasn’t that upset when the sheriff lost his money because at least it meant the count went back to Bavaria and I could get back to trying to win Marian, though it’ll be a while I guess before she forgives me for burning down her house. I’ll maybe have to up the size of my gifts. Also, be more careful about what I choose to give her. The fire tongs and toasting forks did not go down well!

A couple of weeks ago I had a disagreeable time that all started with a bunch of pesky children. They’d been playing in the forest and came across me testing out a new form of armour. First off, I should say that I don’t actively hate children; it’s just that their happy playing reminds me of how unhappy my childhood was. I had no friends, other than Robin of Locksley, as he was known then. Even he wasn’t really my friend. He only let me hang around with him because it gave him an opportunity to tease me at every turn. Come to think of it, he still teases me whenever he has the chance.

Anyway, the boys who’d been playing in the forest saw the peasant I’d chained up wearing an armoured breastplate and surviving a bunch of arrows loosed at his chest. The armour was impenetrable. It was also the sheriff’s new secret weapon, so the boys stumbling across it was unfortunate. I don’t know what came over me, but I stopped my men from slitting their throats and instead ordered that they be tied up and later sent to work in one of our mines. From there on in, it all started to go horribly wrong.

First off, Hood managed to steal the box containing the special rocks the smith needed to make the special armour. Then he and his gang rescued the boys who knew the armour’s special secret. (I would use a word other than special, but I’ve misplaced my thesaurus). Not quite all the boys, however, as I managed to snaffle one of them, so I had a hostage that I could trade for the box of rocks. I don’t suppose I need to tell you, dear diary, that my plan failed spectacularly.

Before that, however, I did at least have one small moment of satisfaction, dare I say happiness. Naked from the waist up, I was trying on the special armour breastplate for size, when Marian unexpectedly turned up. I took off the armour and dismissed my servant. I wanted Marian to take a good look at what she was missing, what she could have had if she’d gone through with our wedding. She did indeed seem a little flustered by my bare flesh and when she took hold of my hand, offering friendship, as she put it, I came over all funny as I briefly imagined both of her hands pulling down my breeches and marvelling at my special rocks plus attachment. Whatever might or might not have happened between us, the moment was lost when my servant interrupted us telling me that there was a messenger from the sheriff waiting to talk to me. Marian left and I took a few moments to pet my special rocks and attachment before heading off to talk to the messenger, who turned out to be none other than my spy, Allan a-Dale.

The cheek of the man, sitting at my table, eating my food and drinking my wine. He handed me the sheriff’s official seal. I asked him what Robin was going to do about recovering the boy. Diamonds for boy, he told me (diamonds = special rocks).

I knew there’d be some trick to it and a purse of coin loosened Allan’s tongue further: Pitch, in a box containing the diamonds. Boy runs free, Robin fires a flaming arrow and pi-shoo! Bye-bye diamonds.

He told me he’d tell Hood that he’d been tumbled, that I had recognised him under the guard’s disguise he was wearing and that we had a fight, which he nearly won, leaving me for near dead while he fled Locksley Manor dispatching guards as he went. With this, he stuffed another piece of chicken in his mouth. I slapped his cheek, hard. What was that for, he asked. Believability, I said, backslapping him a couple more times. So, dear diary, another moment of pleasure in my less than pleasurable life.

Once Allan had gone, I settled down at the table with the remains of my meal. I was still hungry when I’d finished as the outlaw had eaten a goodly part of it, but it didn’t matter because there was plenty of wine left and I got mildly drunk. Before tumbling into bed, I stripped naked, put on the special armoured breastplate because it made me feel powerful and gave my special rocks and attachment a jolly good seeing to.

The next day, slightly hung-over but feeling full of bravado, I was ready to put the sheriff’s plan into action. I had told him about the pitch-lined box, so when the swap – the boy Daniel for the black diamonds – was made, the sheriff poured the rocks into a sack, thus preventing Hood from firing a flaming arrow at it and making it go pi-shoo!

This time, I was wearing more than just a breastplate. Admittedly, I did feel a bit like a bizarrely animated tin man and I knew the look would never catch on. Plus, I had my leathers on underneath, so I was uncomfortably hot. Sweat had gathered under my armpits and around my special rocks and attachment. Hood’s gang were busy keeping arrows trained on the sheriff’s archers, so it was just Locksley and me. I had a whale of a time, slamming into him, his sword making no impact on my armour. My movements were less than balletic, but I didn’t care. I was going to pound Robin Hood into a bloody pulp while his gang and the sheriff looked on, the first in horror and the latter impressed. But alas, dear diary, I expect you know what’s coming by now. While Hood used his head, I was heading for a fall.

I didn’t twig that the black liquid he threw over me was pitch until it was too late. One flaming arrow later, my special armour was ablaze. Oh, the indignity of it. Not only had I looked like an oversized child’s toy tin man, now I was an oversized toy tin man with his pants on fire. I whirled my arms about in an effort to put out the flames, which was about as effective as pouring a cup of water on a forest fire. The sweat inside my trousers increased a thousandfold. Actually, I don’t think it was sweat.

A large washtub saved me, though I regretted not making a more graceful entry having fallen backwards into it in my hurry to extinguish the flames. As if that weren’t enough, Hood pounced on me, pulled off my helmet and breastplate and held a sword to my throat. Terrified, I added a little bit more water to the washtub. Hood threatened to drown me unless the sheriff gave him the black diamonds. After several more dunkings, when it was clear the sheriff couldn’t give a toss about me, Marian came to my rescue. Holding a dagger to the smith – the only man west of Jerusalem who knew how to turn the black diamonds into special armour – she demanded the sheriff exchange the rocks for me. Knowing he had no choice, he did so. Hood then threw the sack of rocks into a fire where they exploded. I stumbled towards Locksley Manor, a soaking wet, bedraggled, fire-singed mess of a man.

Marian found me in the courtyard, removing the rest of the armour. I thanked her for saving me. I also pointed out that she had saved Robin and quizzed her on whether she was playing me for a fool and had been associating with the outlaw behind my back. She denied it, of course. The smith, meanwhile, declared that he could not work in such a chaotic environment and left. The sheriff was furious. I didn’t give a rat’s arse and retreated to my room. A servant brought me wine and offered to stoke the dying fire. I would have punched him in the face if I hadn’t been so exhausted.

Several cups of wine later, I crashed onto my bed and fell asleep whereupon I dreamed that I’d turned into a giant firework, attached to a huge Catherine wheel. Robin Hood was firing flaming arrows at me and laughing. Marian was throwing buckets of water at me and laughing. Allan a-Dale was throwing half-eaten chicken pieces at me and laughing. Daniel and his friends were throwing big black rocks at me and laughing. It was not a happy dream.

 


	22. November, Thursday 23rd, windy with showers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holy pork and other matters

Dear diary, another month rolls by and I have much to write.

After the humiliating incident with the special armour, I kept myself to myself for a bit, performing my duties for the sheriff and then retiring to my room as soon as possible. Even so, it was difficult to escape ridicule. There were many boil-in-the-tin jokes and the dangers of playing with fire jokes, as well as the servants getting their own back on me by making sure I always returned to a blazing fire in my hearth. Even some visiting mummers got in on the act, so to speak, and performed a play in Nottingham square that involved audience participation, namely throwing buckets of pitch onto the armour-wearing mummers. It was lauded as the best production of the season.

Fortunately, the jokes and innuendo ceased when the sheriff had another of his crackpot schemes, this time to kill the king and his army by way of poison pies, testing them out on the peasants of Pitt Street first. As ever, Robin and his gang stepped in and saved the worthless peasants’ lives. They also ended up saving the sheriff’s life, more’s the pity. Only last week, almost a month since the flaming armour incident, I returned to my room to find my undergarments lying on my bed, full of burn holes, with a note from the sheriff commiserating with me on the recent infestation of fire-moths.

There were more fun and games last week.

It began in the Trip Inn, where I met Allan a-Dale, my spy. He started out by having a go at me for killing Roger of Stoke, as if he didn’t know that I’d stick a knife in the man’s guts. We quickly moved on. He told me that he knew I had a messenger, Henry of Lewes, arriving the next day. Henry was coming to spill the beans on where the king and his army were going to land once they reached England. I gave Allan some coin in exchange for this information and said there would be more when and if Henry arrived safely in Nottingham.

I was chuffed to bits when, the next day, the coach carrying Henry drew up in the castle courtyard. My moment of puffed up pride lasted but a few seconds, however, as the coach door opened and Henry tumbled to the ground, clearly unwell, possibly dying for all I knew. The sheriff glowered at me and I guessed I would be going without supper that evening. We had no idea what was wrong with the man and I sent for the sheriff’s physician, Blight.

The next morning, Henry was still feverish, Blight’s leeches having done no good, and not a word had yet passed the man’s lips about the king’s plans. In typical sheriff fashion, Vaisey lambasted Blight and ordered me to find another quack. There was only one other healer in Nottingham with the expertise to deal with this and that was the witch, Matilda. She’d cured all sorts of ills over the years and she’d attended numerous births, including that of Robin Hood. I disliked her intensely. Wherever she crossed my path, she took great pleasure in calling me all sorts of disparaging names and comparing me to nasty things, fox turd being her favourite. I would have liked to have made her eat said fox turd and then thrown her in the Trent, but my chance never came, until this week, that is.

Oh, you hairy pig-witted fox turd, the witch shouted as my men dragged her from her house. I had to give it to her; she knew how to curse inventively. Slimy little snothead, she said as I presented her to the sheriff. He dismissed Blight and threatened Matilda if she did not cure Henry and get the man to talk. She got him to talk all right – in gibberish. Holy pork, I ask you! Mind you, it was funny. I had real trouble stifling my giggles in front of the sheriff and had to feign a coughing fit. Wish I could get my hands on some of that stuff the witch gave Henry. I’d have a field day with it. I could give it to the guards and watch the sheriff fume as he gave them orders and they answered back in riddles. In fact, I could give it to the sheriff just before a council of nobles meeting; see how his threats come out then! A clue – nose. Hee hee.

Anyway, back to the witch and her punishment for muddling Henry’s brain and for colluding with Robin Hood. Not eating fox turd and drowning in the River Trent, alas, but close. A ducking stool over Locksley pond.

All was going well, the sheriff enjoying the sight of Matilda being lowered into and then lifted up out of the water, uncaring of her venomous remarks each time she surfaced. Blight, too, looked beside himself with glee. However, both lost their cheerful demeanour when the chair rose for a fourth or maybe fifth time with no woman seated upon it. All that remained on the chair was the witch’s wet underwrappings. I squirmed at the sight, recalling my days as a youngster when I wet the bed. My father once thought to cure me of the habit by humiliating me. He strung several pairs of wet undergarments to a line outside our house. Robin had great fun firing arrows at them, while I risked life and limb running along under the line yanking my wet things from it. Recalling the shameful moment, I was distracted from keeping my eye on holy pork Henry. The next thing I knew the sheriff was shouting at me: Henry’s gone!

My guards once again proved their uselessness and failed to find either Matilda or Henry. Perhaps she really was a witch and had spirited both herself and Henry away. Who knows? What I did know was that the sheriff was spitting feathers. He blamed me for losing Henry.

For dinner that evening, the servants brought me a plateful of leeches. Actually, they weren’t that bad. They tasted like chicken, only bloodier.

Later, still fuming, the sheriff made me lick the bowl containing the witch’s brew she’d fed to Henry. Though I have no recollection of what twaddle I uttered, it cheered the sheriff up no end. Every now and then, for the whole of the next two days, I would catch him chuckling to himself and muttering ‘Bobbin Wood’ and ‘beddy tear’.

 


End file.
